Vicky Ford
Main Page: Vicky Ford (Conservative - Chelmsford)Department Debates - View all Vicky Ford's debates with the Cabinet Office
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady raises a reasonable question. The answer is that this is the first wave—[Interruption.] Well, there are 7,000 or 8,000 being recruited this year, and the volume of applications is, I am delighted to say, very high. I believe that our approach is right.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I should like to pick up on the point about the environment. The Leader of the Opposition seemed to suggest there was not much about the environment in the Queen’s Speech. Will the Prime Minister confirm that the UK is leading the world on the environment and on helping developing countries to fight back against climate change, and that in this Queen’s Speech, which I have in my hand, there are new measures on water quality and air quality, on committing to reduce emissions and on protecting our wildlife, our plants and our planet?
The Prime Minister
I am so grateful to my hon. Friend, because she gives me the opportunity to point out that it is this Government who are doubling spending on climate change to £11.6 billion over the next five years. That is a colossal sum—more than any other country—and we are leading the world in tackling climate change and setting a blistering pace for our friends and partners across the world.
We are able to do that because we support a dynamic free market economy, and that is how we are able to fund education across the country. We believe that that is the best way to create and spread opportunity, rather than setting out, as the Leader of the Opposition would, to mutilate that system by banning all fee-paying schools, thereby saddling the taxpayer with a £7 billion bill. We want to give every parent the confidence that comes from properly inspecting schools, and I think it is frankly insane to scrap Ofsted with no plan to put anything in its place, when parents rely on Ofsted to keep their kids safe. It is because we one nation Conservatives believe in opportunity that we insist on standards in schools and on investment. It is to allow young people to make the most of their education and their talents, and to boost the productivity of all the UK, that we are embarking on the biggest programme of infrastructure investment for a generation.
Sir David Amess
That was a faux pas on my part, but I think we got on pretty well. We share similar levels of stress and we just want the thing to be over.
I voted initially for us not to join the European Union. I voted for us to leave the European Union when we had the referendum, never thinking for a moment that we would have another referendum, and I was absolutely shocked at the result. No Liberal Democrat Members are in the Chamber at the moment, but I pay tribute to them because their view has been consistent. However, I do not see anything liberal or democratic about their policy.
I had the privilege of helping to chair the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill Committee. There was a first-class debate in the Chamber from Members on both sides of the House. Reflecting on that debate now, I simply do not understand why, when it came to the vote to trigger article 50, such a huge number of Members voted for that process. If we had not triggered the process, we would not be where we are now. Anyway, I hope that a miracle happens, Brexit is fixed and we leave the European Union on 31 October.
The reason I like to speak on this particular day is that we can speak about anything, as a number of colleagues have demonstrated, but bizarrely, I will keep my remarks close to the Gracious Speech. The Leader of the Opposition made an interesting speech, but I did not feel an atmosphere of good will. He seemed reluctant to say that he would support any of the measures. Surely in a broken Parliament, there are at least half a dozen measures that, cross-party, we could support. He said one particular thing that I agree with and I will come to that later.
The last Session was, of course, the longest parliamentary Session since the civil war. I attend business questions every Thursday. Opposition Members said, “When are we going to get the Queen’s Speech?” Well, we have it, so it should be celebrated that we have a new Session. The point I am particularly interested in is the wonderful line about measures to be announced. Besides the 22 measures, there will be many more. As far as Brexit is concerned, I have given my view already. Even if I had a different view, I would follow what my constituents voted for in the referendum: 58% voted to leave and 42% voted to remain.
In terms of cross-party support, I would have thought that the Opposition could support the animal welfare measures. We recently had a debate about the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill. It fell at Prorogation, but it can be carried over, and everyone should be pleased that “dumb animals” will have protection if the legislation is carried. We will ban the imports of trophy-hunted animals and all the other barbaric practices whereby going on safari is advertised and when people get there, the animals are all caged up. How people can celebrate standing on such a beautiful thing as an elephant or a rhinoceros, I do not understand, so the House should support those measures.
Over the years, we have spoken about laws to recognise the sentience of animals. The UK has been a global leader in this area for as long as I can remember, and I pay tribute to the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation, of which I am a patron. I am very glad that the Queen’s Speech suggests that we will do something about that issue.
I know that no Minister sums up this debate on the first day but, if we ever get to day six, I would like an answer to the question about pet passports. In terms of when we negotiate the withdrawal Bill, a number of my constituents have asked whether we are going to continue with the reciprocal arrangements, so that those remain in place for them when they take their dogs or cats abroad.
There is another point that the House should surely agree on. Only last week, we had a wonderful debate about the Domestic Abuse Bill, when the House was at its very best and we heard a number of splendid speeches. I am absolutely delighted that that Bill has been carried over. If we really are going to vote down the Queen’s Speech, it would be a great shame if that Bill is lost.
I was on the Health Committee for 10 years. You reach a point where you just go round and round in circles in the inquiries that are held, but I was really pleased that we announced in the Queen’s Speech that we would have an integrated care Bill. Our NHS is a huge organisation. The treatment that we get from general practitioners, hospitals, pharmacists and other services is absolutely essential, but it is important that we have joined-up healthcare. I hope that that is what the Bill will mean, and it is certainly something that the Conservative party has been promising ever since we formed the coalition Government in 2010.
The morale of our staff who work in the NHS is very important. I am very glad that they have been given a reasonable pay rise. I visited my local hospital recently. Every single ward does a splendid job. I suppose that this will go down like a lead balloon, but I am going to pick out the Elizabeth Loury ward, which deals with particularly ill patients. I thought that the staff were absolutely amazing and when I went to congratulate them, a patient who was hooked up to all sorts of machines heard what I was saying and forced their way out to say, “I want to agree with you: they are doing an absolutely wonderful job.” I would have thought that all Members of Parliament would agree that we should praise the work that they do. All this talk about the privatisation of the health service is absolute rubbish, as far as I am concerned.
The Royal College of Nursing’s staffing for safe and effective care campaign was brought to my attention at the recent Conservative party conference, and I am glad that the Queen’s Speech included matters relating to support for the NHS workforce, which the RCN believes should be at the heart of Government policy.
Earlier this month we had another really good debate on women’s mental health, led by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who is no longer in her place, with first-class contributions from colleagues. I think it was the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger)—she has recently joined the Liberal Democrats—who said that we need more money for mental health services. We would all say amen to that, but it is a question of balance. In that debate, I spoke about two inspiring local women, Kelly Swain and Carla Cressy. Both those ladies run charities in my local area, and I know that access to Government funding would represent a significant boost to their organisations. I hope that we will look at how clinical commissioning groups and the Department of Health and Social Care can work together to ensure that money goes to small charities.
I said I agreed with the Leader of the Opposition on one point, and that was Grenfell. We all remember waking up after the election and seeing the terrible scenes. The hon. Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad), who was newly elected, made a fantastic speech, and we have had some very good debates. I am the chairman of the all-party parliamentary fire safety and rescue group, and I absolutely agree with the Leader of the Opposition that we should fit sprinklers retrospectively in high-rise buildings. No new school should be built without sprinklers being fitted, and I agreed with his point about new building safety standards. Following Dame Judith Hackitt’s review, it is important that the House gets behind the legislation, about which I hope to hear more detail.
At the recent Conservative party conference, I met the British Heart Foundation, and the statistics it gave us on UK air pollution were truly shocking. From the reports that I have read, the environment Bill about which we have heard today will address not only poor air quality but the protection of landscapes and habitats. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) is the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. We all know that to deliver a clean environment we must promote electric cars. I am surrounded on these Benches by experts in the technology of electric cars. I am no expert, but I now understand much more about hybrid cars than I did. At the conference, I met representatives of the industry who mentioned serious concerns about the lack of charging points available across the country, with just one charging point in my constituency, and a total of five in the whole of Southend. It is essential that the infrastructure legislation that will be introduced improves that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) mentioned Extinction Rebellion. I do not want to be a hypocrite about this. I collected my tree, as did a huge number of colleagues. I got a beech tree, which will be used for hedging. Umpteen people locally would like more trees. I promised the chap who gave me the tree that I would mention his opinion that, while what the Government are doing at the moment with tree-planting programmes is good, we need to plant billions of trees. Quite where billions of trees could be put, I do not know. All I would say is that in Southend West we have an active tree-planting campaign, and I am sure there is plenty of space in Scotland to plant even more trees.
Vicky Ford
I thank my great Essex neighbour and hon. Friend for giving way. In Chelmsford, on one of our new developments, we have recently planted 70,000 tree whips and shrubs. Perhaps he would like to come and check out how we did it.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
The Queen of our great country is a beacon of stability, of good sense and of serenity. It was a true honour to be in Parliament today when she delivered her Gracious Speech, and it is an honour to be in this Chamber to speak tonight.
I have been a Member of Parliament for two years, four months and six days—two, four, six—and I genuinely believe that the vast majority of people who go into politics do so because they want to make a difference. Where we see good things happen in our constituencies, we want to replicate them. Where we see bad things happen, we want to eradicate them. We want to move forward, and yet, for the past two years, four months and six days, I have often felt that we are going round and round in circles. Every Wednesday, when we meet for Prime Minister’s Question Time, it feels like yet another groundhog day. This week gives us a chance: a chance for hope, a chance to end that merry-go-round, a chance to get that first phase of Brexit done and move on—and people across the country are crying out for us to move on.
I voted remain, but I know it is vital for our democracy that we respect the fact that we gave people the vote, and we should deliver on that vote. However, I also know that the EU is our largest trading partner, and that many EU countries are our closest allies. No deal is not a good deal. It is not good for the UK, it is not good for the EU, and it is certainly not good for Ireland. I urge everyone who is involved in the negotiations today—I see that the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), is here—to roll up their sleeves, to work night and day, to be creative and to find compromises, and I urge everyone in the House to take the same approach. I say to certain Members—particularly the Leader of the Opposition, who just loves the chaos, and who wants more confusion because he is feeding on it for his own political gain—“History will not forgive you. I urge you to back a deal and end the chaos.”
We have just had our longest Session. The Queen’s Speech contains much positive news—news of investment in the NHS, in infrastructure, in schools, in the police and, of course, in caring for our environment—but sometimes, in order to appreciate where we are and where we need to go, it is necessary to look at where we have come from. I remember when, 10 years ago, the Conservative Government took over from Labour. Our country was suffering a massive economic failure. Our country had some of the highest levels of debt in the world. Our country was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Our country had run out of money. Reducing public spending was not an ideological mission; it was done because Labour had blown all the cash.
Rebuilding our economy meant supporting entrepreneurs, backing innovators, and making sure that we were at the forefront of some of the fastest-growing sectors—the tech revolution, financial services, science and research, and the space sector—because those were the sectors that were driving investment and creating opportunity. The harsh reality is that 10 years ago, 1 million young people were not in employment, education or training. They had been left by Labour on the edge of society, with no opportunity. Yet this year, in my constituency, 650 people started apprenticeships.
Ten years ago, one in five young people had no job; today we have record employment and record youth employment. Government do not create jobs, businesses do, but it is up to us to create the environment that allows our economy to flourish, and it is because of those policies that we are in the position today to give the opportunities offered in this Queen’s Speech.
First, there is the record investment in our NHS. We know that the NHS needs a long-term vision. In Chelmsford we need more GPs, but that is why we have built a new medical school that is already training them. And we know that a long-term plan needs to come from the bottom up, which is why I am so pleased that the NHS long-term plan is written not by politicians but by physicians and frontline health professionals, and our Queen’s Speech gives us the opportunity to turn that plan into reality.
Before coming here I helped to finance infrastructures all over our country, all over Europe and all over the middle east and Africa, and infrastructure in this country is creaking. As I said in my maiden speech, people in Chelmsford spend too much time in traffic jams and on delayed trains; it is a waste of their time and it is a waste of our country’s productivity. I am honoured to chair the all-party group on infrastructure in this place, and I am pleased to see the national infrastructure strategy right at the heart of the Queen’s Speech.
In my constituency of Chelmsford we have many excellent schools, and I am constantly impressed by the standards of their students and the dedication of their teachers. Our schools have been under pressure in Essex: costs have increased and the number of pupils with special educational needs in my county has gone up by nearly 22%. Budgets are strained, and I am pleased that the Queen’s Speech gives that vital boost to our education, levels up the funding and gives the extra funding for special educational needs.
On crime and policing, it is no secret that over the past decade Essex police were under-resourced, but in the past two years moves have been made to rectify that, thanks to the Government’s changing the funding stream and to our excellent police, fire and crime commissioner, Roger Hirst, who has made it possible for us to already be recruiting 368 more police, with another extra 135 promised by the Essex Home Secretary just last week. We have city centre policing and more power for police, and in this Queen’s Speech we are also going to be making the extra effort to protect the most vulnerable in our society, the victims of domestic violence.
Finally, I want to talk about climate change. Our country has reduced emissions faster than any other large economy in the world. We are the first major economy to set net zero in our law; we are leading the world on renewables, especially offshore; we are leading the global fight against coal; and we are leading the global work to protect the poorest countries on our planet. We are also now leading the efforts to protect the world’s oceans: this tiny island is going to be protecting a third of the world’s oceans within the next decade.
Of course there is more to do.
Vicky Ford
No, we are short of time so I will not take any more interventions.
Of course there is more to do but this Queen’s Speech allows us to improve air quality and water quality and restore habitats for wildlife and plants, as well as fight back on plastic pollution. I am standing here having listened to the leader of the Scots Nats say he wanted to fight single-use plastic while staring across the Chamber at the single-use plastic cups that they have chucked under their seats. We need to take action for our planet. There is only one planet, we cannot replace it and we in this country are leading the world’s efforts to protect it.
This Queen’s Speech gives us a unique opportunity; let’s not squander it.
Vicky Ford
Of course, the 2.4% will come from both public and private investment, so it is not all Government spending. The key element is to make sure we encourage investment from outside sources, as well as from domestic and public sources.
Alan Mak
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In fact, every £1 of public expenditure on R&D typically leverages around £1.40 of additional private sector investment, so it is a powerful tool. If the Government can turbocharge and accelerate investment in R&D, the private sector will follow.
To answer my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), I very much hope the defence budget will also increase in time. There have been significant advances in defence technology, and the Ministry of Defence has led the way in helping small and medium-sized enterprises and incubators to develop products for the defence sector. I hope that increases in the future, as it has been a good model in America and other NATO allies for ensuring their armed forces have access to the latest technology. I hope our armed forces do that, too.
Returning to the Queen’s Speech, not only is there an increase in public investment in R&D but there is a commitment to fusion energy, which holds the possibility of driving forward our energy market and our energy capabilities in the years ahead. As I mentioned, First Light Fusion in Oxfordshire is doing exciting and interesting work, and I hope it succeeds.
The Queen’s Speech also establishes a new space council and launches a comprehensive space strategy. Our space capabilities are increasingly central to our day-to-day lives, whether civilian or military. These important capabilities underpin a range of technologies, from smartphones to navigational devices, so this new national space council and space strategy will help us to lead the way in creating high-value, high-skilled, high-wage jobs across the country. My Havant constituency is already leading the way in this area, with firms such as Lockheed Martin doing excellent work.
This Queen’s Speech will help our world-leading science and technology base to grow even further. Science and technology will be the foundation of our prosperity after Brexit, and it will help us to tackle some of the big challenges facing society, such as ending the UK’s contribution to climate change, managing the adoption and adaptation of fourth industrial revolution technologies, transforming our transport systems and tackling the challenges associated with an ageing population.
The grand challenges and the Government’s industrial strategy, to which I had the privilege of contributing in a small way when I was at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, are already helping the country to secure our position in the world, but this Queen’s Speech takes us even further and faster, which is why I will be pleased to support it in the Lobby next week.